Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a dyeing device and a dyeing apparatus, and more particularly, to a dyeing device and a dyeing apparatus adapted to be used in a high pressure environment.
Description of Related Art
In current society which pursues environmental protection, industries are all hoping to reduce waste in the production process, to use renewable materials or energy if possible, and to better handle post production waste for recycling and reuse. In a traditional dyeing process, water is used as a medium, wastewater produced after dip-dyeing contains heavy metals and organic dyeing additives which are difficult to decompose, and water pollution caused by the wastewater containing the aforesaid chemical substances results in a tremendous pressure for the recovery of nature and ecological environment.
Supercritical fluid dyeing is a highly anticipated environmental-friendly technology among the current dyeing techniques. A normal substance will enter into a state of supercritical fluid (SCF) when the temperature and the pressure thereof exceed the critical temperature and the critical pressure. The SCF is characterized in having a low viscosity, a high diffusion coefficient, and a low surface tension (which are similar to gas), and also having a high density and a high dissolution capability (which are similar to liquid); wherein different substances will have different chemical properties after being turned into SCFs. For example, the dissolution capability of the SCF will change with changes in temperature and pressure in the environment, and carbon dioxide may be increased in oleophilicity after entering into the state of SCF (and thereby has an ability to dissolve organic matter). Therefore, supercritical carbon dioxide may dissolve a nonpolar dye and may easily infiltrate into porous structures with the characteristic of the SCF having a low surface tension. Carbon dioxide SCF dyeing does not require using water as the medium and is non-toxic, and thus is capable of resolving the problem of environmental pollution caused by conventional dyeing processes, such as wastewater pollution.
In the conventional carbon dioxide SCF dyeing process, carbon dioxide fluid from a high pressure steel cylinder forms the carbon dioxide SCF through adjusting the temperature and the pressure. Next, the carbon dioxide SCF flows through a dye container to dissolve a dye, and the carbon dioxide SCF with the dissolved dye is then placed into a dyeing trough, which is placed with a fabric. In the aforesaid conventional dyeing process, the carbon dioxide SCF and the dye are required to flow through a high pressure pipeline to reach the dyeing trough. Thus, in addition to complicating the structure of process equipment, troublesome procedures for cleaning the high pressure pipeline and the dye container after the dyeing process staining system are needed. As the high-pressure pipelines and processing are required, the overall process efficiency is low, and may even affect the yield of dyeing products.